ON THE HORIZON
As the causes for children's diseases become more closely linked to environmental hazards, health officials and environmental officials will be forced to work more closely together. Chemicals entering the environment affect every stage of a child's physical and mental development. Humans are affected from the womb through adulthood by chemicals, toxic emissions, hazardous waste, and pesticides.
There is increasing evidence of the importance of linking environmental and public health policy as they relate to children, including the following:
- The amount of chemicals released into the environment has grown significantly since the end of World War II, making this generation the most chemical-exposed in history. According to EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), 7.7 billion pounds of chemicals were released in 1999. Fewer than half of high production chemicals (chemicals produced in quantities greater than 1 million pounds per year) have been tested for toxicity, and less than 25 percent have been tested for their toxic effects on children.
- Seventeen percent of children under age 18 have a developmental disability, such as mental retardation, autism or cerebral palsy. Environmental agents may be a factor in 25 percent of these cases.
- In 2001, an estimated 553,400 Americans will die of cancer-more than 1,500 people per day. Genetics and personal habits (such as smoking) will cause some of these deaths, but many will be caused by environmental factors. Asbestos, cigarette smoke, and a host of other chemicals have been identified as cancer-causing.
- The CDC has initiated a national report on human exposure to environmental chemicals. This report provides an ongoing assessment of the U.S. population's exposure to environmental chemicals through biomonitoring, which assesses human exposure by measuring chemicals in human blood and urine. The report currently tracks 27 chemical agents, but will track more than 100 in the future. As the data sets grow, enough information will become available to predict levels for individual states.
- Industry is curbing the amount of chemicals released to one-quarter of what they released previously. A review of similar TRI releases from 1988 to 1999 indicates that industry dramatically reduced the amounts released, from 6.9 billion pounds in 1988 to 1.7 billion pounds in 1999. However, because the EPA now requires more industries to report and more chemicals to be reported, it sometimes appears that the amount of chemicals being released is increasing when, in fact, it is decreasing.
Yet, public health policy often remains separate from environmental policy. State health agencies act under different legislative authority, utilize different offices, and follow different missions than their counterparts in environment. The federal agencies suffer from the same fate-the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency resides in Washington, D.C.; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is housed 400 miles south, in Atlanta, Georgia.
In the future, chemicals will be regulated based not only on their affect on adults, but also on their effects on children. A child's smaller size; the amount of air, water and food taken in, and potential exposure levels differ from those of adults and call for different regulations. The levels of pesticides that are permitted to be released into residential areas and near schools will be child-safe; some may even be prohibited. The amount of mercury, lead and other heavy metals released into the environment also could be limited, based on their effect on children.
These acts will be accomplished by coordinated efforts between health and environmental agencies, working to ensure that children are not adversely affected by chemicals or other environmental contaminants. As the responsibilities of state health and environmental officials expand, their policies will become intermingled. Environmental health and the protection of children will bring together the two agencies.
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